Man dies, then his mom, then both get eaten by cats

Boing Boing reader Katie says,

This story is so horrifying I can't help but share it with Boing Boing. Also, I am hoping you'll post this, so maybe I'll get the unicorn chaser I so desperately need now. As my friend Tab Brown said, "It sounds like an Edgar Allan Poe version of a Hoarders episode."

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

OH NOES
MrJM

How wonderful that these people were able to provide for their pets even after their passing.
Sekino

I don’t think the fact that the kitties scavenging the body is nearly as disturbing as the elderly mother dying of thirst in her own home with nobody checking on them. That’s freaking horrific, cats or no cats.

However, if the fear of cats brings out more baby otters chasers, carry right on!
Church

Nom Nom Mom.
- Snig
  
  I laughed at that, but still would not want to see the lolcat picture of it.
Talia

Actually it was just the man the cats were nomming on, and then just his foot.

For some reason the pairing of this particular photo with this story is making me giggle. And then feel bad about giggling.
Anonymous

I can haz hoomin?
Bliss

I’ve long hoped that if both me and my bf suddenly die at home, our cats (Alan and Kalimba) will eat us. Specially if that means they survive until we’re found (and then taken in the care of their godfather. Yes my cats have a godfather)

I have long wished my last wish could be to be left in a forest to be eaten (I wanna give back to the cycle) but no jurisdiction would allow that, so I’ll settle for saving my cats :)
- apoxia
  
  I like your thinking. My bf alternately wants to be blown up in a field (when he’s dead!) or scavenged by birds like Buddhist monks sometimes do. I’ve got him to settle to being buried in a cardboard box with a tree planted over top of him.
  - Bliss
    
    To make him happier, you can tell him he’d be a Pequenino like in Speaker for The Dead
ackpht

This thread gives a whole new meaning to that look I get from the cats when I let the food bowls run empty.
elondaits

A similar event opens the short story “Man-Eating-Cats” by japanese writer Haruki Murakami. It probably wasn’t the first time something like this happens.
dhalgren

I really need to stop reading BB while I’m making lunch. Today is Ribeye steak, homemade red potato mashed potatoes, chopped up whole avacado and 3 eggs sunny side up. coffee and Guinness on the beverage side.

Damn I hate cats.
- bja009
  
  Damn, now THAT is a lunch.
- cjp
  
  What a lunch menu, Dhalgren! Approx. 185 cal from the steak if it’s only 3 ounces, 1 cup of mashed potatoes – 237 cal. Avocado – 227 cal and a pint of Guinness at 170 cal. That all adds up to 819 calories or one half of my daily caloric consumption. My guess is that you are not a five foot one, one hundred and five pound woman, like me.
  
  I’m going to nibble away at my 300 calories worth of vegan-friendly, non dairy, gluten free home-made lunch and dream of a Guinness to chase it all down with. Hope you could still eat after the cat thing. Cheers!
  - Vidya108
    
    I’m a vegan too, but that’s a really odd comment. You’re bragging about eating a lunch that’s only 300 calories? I hope you’re planning a huge dinner, because the average person needs around 2000-3000 calories a day to sustain their body in a healthy way. Calories = food energy, a *good* thing.
    - dbarak
      
      Two to three thousand calories a day sounds awfully high to me. I’m no expert (you can tell by looking at me), but I thought something around 1,500 a day was about right… right? In my case, I’m trying to stick to maybe 1,000 to 1,200 a day, although I don’t watch it close enough to really know.
      
      How many calories in a human body?
      - dculberson
        
        It very much depends on your particular build and metabolism. An “average” would be 2,000 calories per the USDA recommendations, but that’s a very rough figure. I’m taller and have a higher metabolism than normal so need 2,500 to maintain weight and prefer closer to 3,000 as I am trying to put a little meat on my bones. (I’m 6’0″ and am finally up to 165 lbs, used to be 135 and was a total stick.)
        
        By means of comparison, the average American is estimated to consume 3,700 calories a day. Fully 85% more than recommended.
        
        1,200 calories is a pretty strict diet, depending on your size, and can result in some unintended binge eating if you’re not a small person. But my parents maintained that for years when they were trying to lose weight. (It worked.)
        
        @MrJM: My favorite comment so far. Awesome.
      - kjs3
        
        According to a doc friend I pinged, a 5’1, 105 lbs female under 30 needs between 1500-1800 calories to maintain, assuming a fairly sedentary lifestyle. 1,000-1,200 calories sounds like an eating disorder, not a diet.
- Anonymous
  
  Damn that’s a lot of food for lunch!
Phikus

Catastrophic!

Are we sure the man was dead and not just catatonic?
regansbox

Toxoplasma getting back to its desired host.
Ernunnos

According to a friend of mine who worked as a reporter on the law enforcement beat and showed up to a number of similar scenes, the difference between cats and dogs is, dogs will wait a week. Cats will wait a day. He has dogs.
- Anonymous
  
  my cat doesn’t even wait for me to die
  - Anonymous
    
    laughed out loud at this one
- dculberson
  
  Hey, you’re dead either way. Why does it matter how long they’ll wait?
  
  (And that’s not necessarily true, anyway – sometimes dogs will do it while you’re alive, just unconscious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_Dinoire )
  
  If I die and my cat or dog is left without food, I hope they’ll feed on me. Just hopefully not while I’m still alive.
  
  Hell, people do the same thing. Abandon someone with a dead body for a while without food and see what happens. The Donners demonstrated that a long time ago.
Anonymous

My Mom’s afraid of that happening, for her cat.
She’s written out a permission thing that her cat has permission to eat off of her if she passes away, say when I’m on vacation and can’t check in on her.

Not that I really like to think about such things, but I worked out a plan to quickly transport the kitty to relatives or our lawyer to prevent her from being killed by the cops.
SomeGuy

I was instantly reminded of this Garrison Keillor song (sung to the tune of “My Grandfather’s Clock”)

My Grandmother’s Cat

My grandmother’s cat grew too fat for his shelf
So he slept every night on a bed.
He was almost as big as my Grandma herself
‘Cause three times a day he was fed.
He was fed tuna scraps as he sat on Grandma’s lap
On his back with a big napkin tied,
He ate as much as he could hold
Until he got too wide.

Every day pounds of salmon meat (chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp)
Sirloin of parakeet (chomp, chomp, chomp)
He ate as much as he could hold
Until he got too wide.

My Grandmother said that of cats she had known
Her favorite by far was old Dan;
He’d stand on the floor, and his eyes simply shone
When she opened the tunafish can.
With his eyes shining bright, and a groan of delight
He’d rub against Grandma and purr,
‘Til one day he knocked Grandma down
For by then he was bigger than her.

Every day gobs of goose pate (chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp)
Followed by fish fillets (chomp, chomp chomp)
‘Til one day he knocked Grandma down
For by then he was bigger than her.

She fell to the floor with a pitiful scream
And lay there unconscious awhile,
And when she awoke his eyes were agleam
As he looked down on her with a smile.
With a gigantic paw, he poked my old Grandma
As he gave her a horrible grin;
He looked at her legs, and he peered at her arms
Wondering where to begin.

Aged, but tender parts, (chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp)
Mouse morsels a la carte (chomp, chomp, chomp)
He looked at her legs, and he peered at her arms
Wondering where to begin.

She managed to climb, despite her bad back
To the top of her old Frigidaire.
She threw him two steaks, his favorite snack
Which he always took medium rare.
The three awful days that she spent upon the fridge
Seemed to her like a lifetime, at least;
She threw to the floor all the food that she could find
To fill up the ravenous beast.

All sorts of merchandise (chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp)
Hams of the family size (chomp, chomp, chomp)
She threw to the floor all the food that she could find
To fill up the ravenous beast.

She stayed there three days, till she ran out of stuff
And the giant was snarling for more!
He was standing and nibbling on her right scuff
When the family burst in through the door.
It took twenty men to shut him in a pen
And ship him away to the zoo;
Let this be a lesson to all, both great and small—
That your pets should be smaller than you.

Carte blanche you can’t afford (chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp)
Cut out the smorgasbord ( chomp, chomp, chomp)
Let this be a lesson to all, both great and small—
That your pets should be smaller than you.
Antinous / Moderator

I want to be disposed of by being thrown into the woods to be eaten by animals. You know, after I’m dead, of course.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Not to the creatures of the woods, but to the creatures of the open sky:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylzMXJwCCpM
  
  - as these Tibetans do.
  
  I suppose sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. A question of style and preference.
  
  Yet others prefer to support the creatures of the sea:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wokZwyOmq_c&feature=related
  
  We come; and we go.
  Every last one of us.
Anonymous

This has happened before in Australia, except replace cats with small dogs
RHK

Zombie cats.

I say we take off, and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
The_Walt

Reminds me of this Nick Lowe song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWunemmwJHM
- Ugly Canuck
  
  oooh sorry for double-posting yer link: that’s what I get for reading these threads from the bottom up!
- Freddie Freelance
  
  @The_Walt, I second “Marie Provost” as my first thought after reading the article: “She was a winner/ who became a doggie’s dinner…”
Anonymous

According to the article, there were dead cats and a dead dog- a nice short story, that – “The Ones That Died Waiting”.
Lucifer

nom nom nom nom nom
hassenpfeffer

Why the man’s foot? Not much meat and too many bones. I knew cats were evil, but I didn’t think they were grotesquely stupid.
Etentum

The good news is that with Facebook integration everyone can like your things on your web site, such as stories of elderly people dieing!

“18 people like this. Be the first of your friends.”

At least none of my friends are that sadistic.
- freshacconci
  
  My cats are always trying to gnaw on my bare feet. I have no idea why. So much of what they do is based on what’s fun, like torturing small creatures rather than just killing them.
  - freshacconci
    
    obviously, this was meant as a reply to hassenpfeffer at #12…
Jerril

I realized I should come back and follow up my comment with a few things -

1) I like dogs, quite a bit. I especially like large dogs like rotties, “pit bulls”, and german shepherds, but I even like toy poodles (which are very different from my favorites). This isn’t a “dog hater” posting, it’s just that I can’t stand to see people claiming dogs are magical and “good” – they’re not any more “good” or “bad” than people, cats, or budgies.

2) Most dogs don’t ever bite the baby, but I still think any pet owner should keep a close eye on the baby while uncaged animals are in the house. Cats, dogs, birds, rats, iguanas, doesn’t matter. The child pulled off the table happened recently here in Canada, with two terriers. The mum and grandmum belted the baby in a car seat on the kitchen table, and stepped onto the balcony for a cigarette.

Cats aren’t “better” or “worse” than dogs – they’re both carnivores, which means they will eat dead people if pressed. Dogs can also eat garbage, crap, and some houseplants (cats eat houseplants to puke, not digest) so might wait a little longer before eating a corpse – but might not. The corpse is more like their normal food than potted petunias.
Anonymous

I can’t see why this would be disgusting. It’s sad to think about the mother, but disgusting? The poor animals were hungry. I’d like my cat to eat me when I’m gone, if it helps him staying alive until the cops come.
Anonymous

The link to the news story leads to an aggressive pop-up advertiser, I don’t think it’s “safe” – I’m on a Mac with Firefox and Adblock Plus and no pop-up set, etc., and it still threw up a browser controlling wall of advertising.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Unicorn chasers? I can offer you a mother river otter teaching her reluctant pups to swim (otters have to learn to swim! who knew?), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpTqV6LPl8c, and a pack of six-week-old Welsh corgi pups demonstrating that they’ve inherited their breed’s herding instinct: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZF5S5ko8dc. Enjoy.
Anonymous

http://vimeo.com/8662160
A related animated piece.
clenchner

Should I feed kitty now, or train them for meager rations?
Art

Is this cat the perpetrator???

‘Looks like he’s wearing those fashionable
“Big Eye”, Japanese Contact Lenses.
mellowknees

I have zero doubt that my two cats would nomnomnom on my lifeless body if I wasn’t there to open the packet of Friskies every morning. They would probably wait about 15 minutes. Okay, maybe 20.
- freshacconci
  
  “They would probably wait about 15 minutes. Okay, maybe 20. ”
  
  Well, they do have to mourn first.
Dapper Swain

Makes sense that there are so many cases “angel of death” cats (http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/when-a-cat-predicts-death/), looking at this. Not that I’m surprised.
magista

I doubt that my cat would even wait until dinner time, judging by the way he used to walk all over me in bed about an hour before I would feed him in the morning.

Now I just have to remember to fill the automatic feeder, and I can actually sleep until the alarm goes off.

Still love the sweet furball, though.
M

A friend of mine’s father died of a heart attack. Probably there was some nosebleeding associated with it, because the cat cleaned it right up. . . then kept going. No cats in my life, ever.
- Phikus
  
  Wow. Cat’s are EVIL because they have preservation instincts and don’t share our sentimentality for a body after death. Hate to break it to ya, but we are made of meat, you know, and a cat’s gotta eat.
  
  As someone stated above, if you were trapped somewhere without food for a prolonged period, you’d do the same.
  - M
    
    Philkus, hate to break it to you, but cats are made of meat, too. Maybe we should get them first.
Ugly Canuck

The shade of Mary Provost stirs…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqW8aSAoiAI

Only not with dogs, this time with kitties.
Anonymous

I just started eating hummus when I read this, and its now significantly harder to eat it.
snakedart

It’s common and it even has a name: port-mortem predation.

In the end, to precious kitteh, all we are is meat.
adonai

It appears the people who constantly baw for unicorn chasers really have no idea what “horrifying” constitutes. I would bet they’d send in the same story if it had turned out the cats had starved because no one was alive to feed them.
- Brainspore
  
  By that rationale the Donner party wasn’t horrifying either.
  - Felton
    
    Adonai has a much higher threshold for “horrifying” than I. Hell, I’ve been to dinner parties I’d describe as horrifying. ;^)
    - adonai
      
      Yeah, I’ve been on the internet for far too long :P
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Perhaps horror is in the eye of the beholder?
  
  In any event, IMHO one ought not to be “horrified” by any creature following its nature; nor consider such to be horrifying.
  
  Personally, I’d say “disgusted”, is better used as the qualifier for the emotion brought on by this “news”: and the IMHO these cats did behave in a disgusting manner.
  
  But nature is frequently disgusting, without being horrifying.
  
  Where the bear or cat is large enough to be actually stalking you, now that I’d call “horrifying”.
Jerril

Dogs do NOT wait a week. Dogs pull babies off of tables and eat them, gnaw the toes off of sleeping diabetics, and castrate infants while trying to get at the crap in their dirty diapers to eat.
- IronEdithKidd
  
  Very happy not to have dogs at the moment. We will wait until the boy is potty trained to get one. Until then, I’m glad we invested in the 5 lb kibble feeder and 1 gallon water bottle for teh kittehs.
- Anonymous
  
  “Dogs do NOT wait a week. Dogs pull babies off of tables and eat them, gnaw the toes off of sleeping diabetics, and castrate infants while trying to get at the crap in their dirty diapers to eat.”
  
  Thought that post was just over the top but then I found this:
  
  http://cbs2.com/local/infant.attacked.dog.2.1622472.html
  - G144
    
    They were pit bulls, they don’t count as dogs. But reading this whole thread, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
  - Jerril
    
    I believe that’s the news story I was thinking of, yes.
    
    There’s a recent incident in Canada of a baby (strapped into a car seat) being pulled off the table and mauled by a husky, but while I was trying to google it, I found a very similar incident from last year in England (pillow instead of car seat):
    http://preview.tinyurl.com/3xwyh52
    
    The Canadian incident I was looking for:
    http://preview.tinyurl.com/32uc7lh
    Apparently the car seat was on the floor, not a table as was initially reported.
    
    Regardless, all of these incidents are horrific. They’re also unusual – I wouldn’t use them to judge whether I like dogs or not, any more than I’d use Charles Manson to judge whether I like men.
Mark Temporis

It’s unfortunate that they’re not faster. Funerals are expensive and a waste of space; putting dead bodies in a room full of cats would be more ecoNOMNOMNOMical and better for the earth.
- merrick04
  
  Hilarious! I actually laughed out loud in an empty room when I read your post. But I guess it’s also true.
max

A friend of mine owns a funeral home in New Jersey and for a while was the coroner in his town. He says that you know a case is bad when you arrive and state troopers are vomiting on the front lawn.

One such case he had was for an obese man who lived alone with his dog and died of heart failure in the top floor apartment of a duplex. The family beneath him called the landlord when a dripping stain appeared on their ceiling. The landlord opened the apartment to find the man had been dead for around a month, and his dog had been surviving by feeding off the body. The room was full of feces, and my friend had clean the body and get it onto a stretcher. He asked one of the troopers to help him move the body onto the stretcher, but when the trooper pulled on the man’s arm it came out of the socket and detached completely, knocking the trooper onto his butt. The trooper began vomiting and the friend just asked him to leave the room and managed to roll the body onto the stretcher and then clean and remove it on his own.
ultranaut

I recall a Vietnam war vet telling me about coming across a bombed out village full of dead people. There were kittens feeding on the remains of a baby. Fucking horrifying.
- nutbastard
  
  In Soviet Vietnam, Cats Eat You!
- nutbastard
  
  http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/funny-pictures-snooze-eat-baby.jpg
Talia

The stories in this thread are way more horrific than the article itself.

*shudder*
nutbastard

Obviously the cats were simply trying to grok them.
- Anonymous
  
  Gold.
  
  I can has water brother?
- Doom-Kitten
  
  That comment was awesome =^.^=
  
  My cat is fat and stupid, she’ll only eat kibble. We have tried feeding her meat but she wont take it. Ferret on the other hand might eat me if she had no other choice, although I’m not even certain of that because of how bonded she is to me….
Anonymous

My sister worked for the local police station taking 911 calls, and she got to hear the horror stories. Most of the human-eating cat stories in the area would involve kitties going for the lips and nose first. Maybe the feet were covered.
Teapunk

I hate Sony Music. I want to watch six week old corgi pups, yet all I get is “This video contains content from Sony Music. It is no longer available in your country.”
How damaging for Sony Music some corgi pups must be. How many people does Sony employ to weed this evil out?
Now, please, back on topic.
Anonymous

I CAN HAZ MOM?
3lbFlax

See also ’70s horror portmanteau The Uncanny, which is about a writer who stumbles on the horrifying truth that cats are supernatural bastards – although, in a confusing twist, their organised campaign of terror only targets evil humans. At any rate, their taste for human flesh is graphically acknowledged.
MrJM

If you’re dead, you’re food.

It’s the law.
Anonymous

This story was funny, in the terrible way that likely means I’ll be going to hell, until I read the last bit about the dead dog. That part was sad.
dbarak

“I like chicken, I like liver, Meow Mix Meow Mix please deliver!”